


Things That Shall After Fall

by speakmefair



Category: A Knights Tale - Fandom
Genre: Multi, Yuletide, challenge:NYR 2009, recipient:angevin2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-01
Updated: 2009-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things stay constant, no matter what befalls.  Friendship and love are among them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Shall After Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angevin2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/gifts).



**Things That Shall After Fall**

*

 _"God woot that worldly joye is soone ago;  
And if a rethor koude faire endite,  
He in a cronycle saufly myghte it write  
As for a sovereyn notabilitee."_

*

 _Late May, 1381_

The Kent countryside was its usual peaceful self, at least outwardly. Wat could find pleasure in what he had created here, nothing grand or amazing, the way he'd once planned to have in London, just somewhere that sold good beer and good food and always had clean bedding. If he also had good girls that helped out by taking away a bit of journey-tension from a traveller or two, he never asked them and never took from their pay unless they were too late for work after it.

He was happy, especially on days like today, when there weren't many around, and he could sit in his yard and watch the hens scratch and the cockerel lord it over them with his ridiculous strutting gait that never failed to make him grin, look over at the two dogs lying nearby stretch out with their heads on their paws, eyes closed into the sun in comfortable dog-like bliss, full-bellied and as content as he. No need for any tethering here, and that was a success he could live with, even if it wasn't fame.

"Gaunt's having a bad time of it," said a familiar smooth voice, the tip of a hand's shadow just brushing over his face, enough to block out the sun and make him take notice, squinting up and across into blue, fair-lashed eyes that were still ridiculously, guilelessly innocent in their expression.

Then the shadow was gone, and Geoff Chaucer sat on the bench beside him, stretching out his legs with a faint sigh of pleasure, and tilting his head back against the sunlit wall, neither offering nor expecting any other kind of greeting.

Geoff did this, from time to time. Just dropped in, completely without warning, still too thin and too tall and still looking as though someone cut his hair by means of holding a blunt knife in one hand and tugging at the cropped bits remaining with the other. Appeared in Wat's inn as though he'd never been away, charming whoever was working that night or that afternoon, or once, horribly, in the morning, but they never talked about that time, because Wat was still uncomfortable with not being able to pound the hell out of whoever had made one of his friends miserable, and he wasn't going to go and thump Geoff's Philippa one. Mostly because he didn't blame her for needing a separate life to Geoff, since who the hell wouldn't?

It seemed to have made a difference, though, even if he hadn't done much except listen to endless drunken maunderings for a couple of days and then chuck Geoff in a horsetrough to sober him up and tell him to sort himself out and fix what he could. Must have made a difference, because every now and again he'd turn around from whatever he was doing, and yeah, there was Geoff. Again. Better-dressed, and more likely to _stay_ dressed, these days, the old ebulliance a little faded, but he was still Geoff, viper-tongued and far too observant for his own good.

He gambled on other things, these days, not just with his literary career - the thought of which still made Wat laugh _at_ him, not with him as so many other people did now - but information and lives. Some said he was Gaunt's spy, and God knew the man had enough of them, so it was possible. It was only that it was hard to think of Geoff, pragmatic, acid Geoff, doing anything undercover. Some said he worked for the King, but that was even stupider, because _of course_ he worked for the King, he was a bloody envoy, and not even Geoff could be a good spy if everyone knew what he was doing.

"We're all having a bad time of it, you twat," Wat said with absent-minded affection, and raised a lazy hand up to rub over Geoff's spiky hair. "Just cos you're not on the side of the angels this time..."

"My God, I don't believe it, did you actually make a reference to something that isn't your stomach?" Geoff prodded at said body part disrespectfully, implying, as he always did, that Wat had turned into the typical rotund innkeeper. He hadn't, he still fit the same measurements, at least he seemed to when he got new clothes, but he had that bit of belly that came from not running all over the country with William and wondering where his next meal was coming from, he'd had it for years, if he was honest.

"Fonging," Wat said warningly, and was rewarded with a snort.

"We're too old for that, Master Fowlhurst. Too old and too dull." But Geoff's heart wasn't in the familiar game, even Wat could see that. "Too old for this."

"Yeah, and what's this, then?" Wat gestured around him, at the cleanliness and comfort he had damn well earned, and couldn't see why it shouldn't be open to others to get a bit of. He'd never wanted glory, just the right to a decent life, and if people were working like hell and didn't get that, he thought they probably had a right to make a fuss about it. Look where making a fuss had got them, after all. "Come on, you've been working too hard, or your brain got inked, or something. It'll be all right, Geoff. You'll see. Get things sorted - 's not only Will needed his stars changing, y'know."

"No, it _won't_ be all right, it'll be a bloody disaster, and I don't know why I talk to you, sometimes, you really just pride yourself on being clueless, don't you?"

Wat glared at him, but it was nice, in a strange and irritating way, to see a flash of that old spark, see the Geoff Chaucer who had tried to face down a crowd with nothing but words and belief, who had leapt onto the Black Prince's chair and been all principle and fire, his voice hoarse and cracking and somehow carrying further than he'd ever managed before.

He thought sometimes that while they had all loved Will, in their own ways, Geoff had been the one who understood him best, known why he was doing all the crazy stuff they'd been roped into. Oh, they'd all pretended along with him that it was because of Jocelyn, because of his father, because of Adhemar, whatever Will said was driving him they'd nodded to or argued with or given in to, but Geoff -

Yeah, Geoff had got it, whatever it was Will never really talked about, Geoff had got it.

"Yeah, so, I'm thick, we all know that, so why're you _here_? Go an' talk to Will, he gets more than one word in ten out of what you blather about."

Geoff's mouth quirked up in a not-really-smile. "I'm not that cruel. You think I'm going to talk to _Will_ about what's happening? Make him think about the difference between knights and peasants and what he does think and what, God bless the man, he's still convinced he _should_ think, and take away his peace? He's earned his lady and his life, Wat, I'll leave him be and send regretful apologies to the invitations to visit."

"No more interfering, then?"

"No more interfering with Sir William, anyway," Geoff said, and managed to make it sound completely filthy.

"Right." Wat tried to sort that out in his head, failed, and shrugged. "Why're you here, then? Can't be to warn me, I can take care of my own. Can't be to talk about rights and wrongs, we'll never agree. So?"

Geoff shrugged. "Went to see Kate, first," he said, and that was one of his not-answer things, the ones no-one ever really understood and that usually meant a long flowery speech was coming. Whatever went on between Geoff and Kate, Wat had never asked about it, and had definitely cut off all hints, even when they came from Kate. It wasn't something he'd really needed to talk over, even though he'd got it when they helped Will write that letter, even when Kate had said something about hope that made Geoff look at her with stars in those wide, pale eyes, he'd never said a thing. He might be thick, but even he knew a girl who worked on armour and a man who wrote stupid poncey rhymes weren't suited. If they could get a little bit of happiness anyway, even with Kate's dead love and Chaucer's living one standing right between them, he wasn't going to comment.

"She all right?"

"I think," Geoff said with painful care, "I'm going to look out of my window one day and see her with that hammer, and I'm not going to like where she's off to. And I won't have a say in it, and I -" He stopped.

If it had been anyone but spiky, incomprehensible Geoff, Wat would have got him a drink and told him to shut up. Not that he couldn't have anyway, but - Geoff _felt_ stuff, felt it hard, poured it all out in words Wat couldn't understand and still kept bloody feeling it, and there was only so much a drink could do when it wasn't a stranger you were listening to, but someone who'd ended up being a friend. He thumped Geoff, awkwardly, on the shoulder.

"Don't look out of the window, then, eh?" he said, and Chaucer turned his head, and _fuck_ , Wat hoped those weren't tears making his eyes glitter, because what would he do then?

"Now why didn't I think of that?" he asked, and if his voice was a little rough, Wat wasn't saying a thing about it, because at least that glitter was fading away, and he could tell himself it had just been a bit of sunlight caught in the blue.

"Well, you're a bit thick, aren't you?" Wat said consolingly, and got to his feet. "You staying a bit?"

"A bit," Chaucer agreed. "A little while, a stolen season, a little -"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Wat said exasperatedly, and held out his hand. "Come on, get up. Let's see about getting you sorted."

They didn't talk about the past, later, or what the future might hold. They didn't talk about Kate or Will or why there had to be all this stupid dividing of something they'd all once believed in, all seen in the same way. They talked about Geoff's new idea for some story he was going to tell about some poor bastard that had rubbed him up the wrong way when he was down at the ports, and they talked about the best ways to keep ale cool in the summer, and Geoff offered to sort out some wine to be brought in, for the travelers who wanted something more than just a pint and a hot meal.

"You've got your Eden, haven't you?" Geoff asked in the morning, and Wat knew he was leaving again. "God be with you, Master Fowlhurst."

"You too, Geoff," Wat said, and grinned, turning back into his inn so that he didn't have to watch the lanky figure disappear down the long road to London, back to whatever he did and whatever he was so unhappy about.

But the next month, when the news came from London, when he learned just how right Geoff had been, when he heard about the Savoy and the broken promises and the stories of the bravery of the young king, he kept an eye out on the road, just in case, waiting. He wondered if Geoff had looked out of his Aldgate window, wondered if he'd seen Kate. Wondered when he'd know for sure. He wondered if news had eventually reached Will, if his peace was destroyed. He wondered how he was still safe, and sometimes, though he never mentioned it to anyone, he worried a little, too.

"I'm going to tell a story about your chickens," said a voice behind him one day, and Wat forgot all about Geoff's spikiness and cleverness and outright stupidity that made him so annoying, and this time he didn't turn round and thump him on the shoulder, or look at him too hard, because he knew what he'd see. Not even Geoff could change that much to look at in a few weeks, but he was going to have changed inside, and they could sort that out, as long as Geoff was here, and safe, and had come back somewhere that he could be looked after a bit, aggravating twat that he was.

He just pulled Geoff in tight, and held on, waiting until the long arms came around him and held back, until Geoff stopped holding himself like something that was going to break or splinter or something terrible like that, and ducked his head down, pushing his face hard into Wat's shoulder.

Neither of them spoke.

Neither of them let go.

*

  



End file.
